Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation PDF
Preview Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation
LIFE ON THE BRINK Life on the Brink Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation EDITED BY PHILIP CAFARO AND EILEEN CRIST THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS ATHENS AND LONDON © 2012 by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org All rights reserved Set in Adobe Garamond Pro by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, Georgia. Printed digitally in the United States of America LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Life on the brink: environmentalists confront overpopulation I edited by Philip Cafaro and Eileen Crist. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-4385-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-IO: 0-8203-4385-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-4048-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-IO: 0-82.03-4048-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Overpopulation- Environmental a~pects. 2.. Environmental ethics. I. Cafaro, Philip, 1962- II. Crist, Eileen, 196I- HB87u5195 2012 363.7'01-dc23 20I20IJ925 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGlNG-IN-l'UBLICATION DATA AVAILABLE To Edward 0. Wilson, Tireless Defender ofN ature '1t is not the Nature ofh uman beings to be cattle in glorified feedlots. Every person deserves the option to travel easily in and out oft he complex and primal world that gave us birth, We need freedom to roam across land owned by no one but protected by all, whose unchanging horizon is the same that bounded the world ofo ur millennial ancestors. Only in what remains of Eden, teeming with life-forms independent ofu s, is it possible to experience the kind ofw onder that shaped the human psyche at its birth. " CONTENTS List of Tables and Figures ix Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, Foreword xi Part I: Introduction I. Eileen Crist and Philip Cafaro, Human Population If Growth as the Rest ofL ife Mattered 3 2. William R. Catton Jr., Destructive Momentum: Could an Enlightened Environmental Movement Overcome It? 16 3. Albert Bartlett, Reflections on Sustainability and Population Growth 29 4. Martha Campbell, Why the Silence on Population? 41 5. Dave Foreman, The Great Backtrack 56 Part JJ, Impacts 6. Leon Kolankiewicz, Overpopulation versus Biodiversity: How a Plethora ofP eople Produces a Paucity ofWildlife 75 7. Jeffrey McKee, The Human Population Footprint on Global Biodiversity 91 viii Contents 8. Tim Palmer, Beyond Futility 98 9. Lester Brown, Environmental Refugees: The Rising Tide 108 IO. George Wuerthner, Population, Fossil Fuels, and Agriculture 123 11. Captain Paul Watson, The Laws ofE cology and Human Population Growth 130 Part III: Necessary Conversations 12. Eileen Crist, Abundant Earth and the Population Question 141 13. Stephanie Mills, Nulliparity and a Cruel Hoax Revisited 154 14. Tom Butler, Colossus versus Liberty: A Bloated Humanity's Assault on Freedom 160 15. Philip Cafaro and Winthrop Staples III, The Environmental Argumentf or Reducing Immigration into the United States 172 16. Joseph Bish, Toward a New Armada: A Globalist Argument for Stabilizing the U.S. Population 189 17. Ronnie Hawkins, Perceiving Overpopulation: Can't We See What We're Doing? 202 18. Amy Gulick, Salmon in the Trees 214 Part IV: Solutions 19. Robert Engelman, Trusting Women to End Population Growth 223 20. William Ryerson, How Do We Solve the Population Problem? 240 21. Don Weeden and Charmayne Palomba, A Post-Cairo Paradigm: Both Numbers and Women Matter 255 22. Richard Lamm, Confronting Finitude 274 23. Winthrop Staples III and Philip Cafaro, For a Species Right ~~ ~ 24. Roderick Nash, Island Civilization: A Vision for"Human Inhabitance in the Fourth Millennium 301 Philip Cafaro, Epilogue: Is Humanity a Cancer on the Earth? 313 Select Bibliography 319 Resources 323 Contributors 32 7 Index 333 TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES 2.r. World population growth to six billion following major breakthroughs in methods of supporting human life 20 2.2. World population growth to six billion- by two categories of humans 23 3.r. Doubling times for different rates of steady growth 31 3.2. Doubling on a chess board 33 4.1. Population growth over the last 210 years 43 4.2. Actual and projected population sizes of countries of the Nile Basin 45" Ip. Projected U.S. population 177 FIGURES 4.1. Trends in world population growth 44 7.1. Correlation between predicted and observed changes in the density of threatened species per nation 94 Ip. U.S. immigrant population, twentieth century 175 15-2a. Sprawl rates, U.S. states 178 15.2b. Sprawl rates, U.S. cities 179 tX
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